The end result is that the link quality is upgraded from the lower quality assets as they pass into a mid-grade asset that creates a moderate value of link quality, which then feeds into the main site from multiple directions. In theory, this results in an improve page rank on the final asset due to the quality and volume of referring pages, while creating a greater impression of relevance in the way that it indirectly filters the referring links from the bulk lower-tier links up to the money site.

A couple of variations of the link pyramid structure involve including horizontal links across tiers, so as to create a sense of a more organic flow, or to include incremental ‘tunnels’ which will lead directly from a few lower tier sites directly up to the main site so as to create a robust assortment of link qualities supporting the page. That being said, the main premise remains the same.

It is from here that we are able to build up an assumption about what kind of additional value can be built from an existing link pyramid. For example, if we notice that there is an extremely large volume of lower tier links that are supporting only a handful of mid-quality pages, it might be possible for us to increase the size of the middle tier, and therefore create a stronger supporting structure in the pyramid itself.

Conversely, if we see that the middle tier is not really creating a great deal of incremental page rank for the main page, we might be able to add additional lower tier links to the structure to improve the quality of the entire project. Lastly, if we see that the entire pyramid structure is well built, but with very little impact on the page’s ability to rank, we can assume that perhaps the niche that this asset is competing in is so complex that it requires industrial linking capabilities. If we have access to such a capacity, then we might be in a position to take the page to the next level, where the current owner could not.

The on-page tweaks that deals with interlinking, titles, descriptions and so on are equally important and most SEO companies have in-house professionals who can handle that. But if you play your role well, these elements can align accordingly. However, there are 3 key elements that must be present in a website or webpage if you truly want to build a online business. They can also impact your search engine ranking in future.

An element can be anything – that has a direct effect on your website’s search engine placement. Use the 3 Keys to unlock your website traffic and earning potentials today.

1. Element one: Brand image

What impression do you create about your website? The truth of the matter is that if you don’t show consumers what to think and talk about, they’d have no other choice than to formulate a theory for you. As they say, “if you fail to make decisions, people will do it for you.”

A brand is your identity, whereas the image is how people react to it. You might have good objectives and top notch products/services, but without a clear and positive impression, you’re literally wasting your creative moments. One simple way to enhance your website’s brand image is to fulfill your promises. Have you made a promise that you didn’t meet up with? There are credible online
reputation management firms that can assist you. You don’t have to over-deliver, especially when the “extra” wouldn’t motivate or satisfy consumers.

Just deliver on promises made. That will be fine. Instruct people on what your website and business is all about. Be courteous. Embrace the truth and ditch the lies. Enhance your brand image today.

2. Element two: Communication

Effective communication has a multiplier effect on your website. No matter the niche you’re into, without this element, you may not build a strong system. If your website attracts organic traffic from Google & other search engines, you’ve to speak ‘value’ from the outset. Failure to do this can result in loss of potential customers to your competitors. And communication is never complete without a feedback.

After optimizing your website internally, go the extra mile and improve your call to action. When you solve a specific problem for your target audience, they will stick around and listen to you. The first rule of effective communication is listening. Until you know who you’re marketing to and what he or she has in mind, you can’t possibly communicate well. Study your audience. Research the keywords and key phrases that they’re using to locate your web pages on search engines. Keyword tone can go a long way to reveal the thoughts people have about a problem. Do they want urgent solution or not?

How would you rate a keyword like this?

“Best diet to lose weight in 7 days” See, the people behind such a keyword are desperate for solutions. Maybe they’re facing embarrassment from friends. They just want to lose weight quickly, in 7 days. How do you communicate effectively and meet this need, if you’re a weight loss watcher or dietician? See next line…

3. Element three: Evergreen Contents

What visions do you’ve for your business website? Will your site still be active in the next 5 – 20 years? Or are you a hit-and-run marketer? Understand that internet marketing is a long term goal. Just like a typical brick and mortar business, you’d want your kids to take over from you.

Offering evergreen contents should be your #1 focus. By evergreen, I mean your contents must be helpful, not just today but in the future. Most website owners don’t understand how consumers respond to new offers. Consumers are scared of losing their hard earned money. And that is why Amazon, Ebay, Wal-Mart and others are successful. They’ve built systems, which doesn’t necessarily need the supervisions of the owners to excel.

It’s about helping people from your heart. No matter what you’re selling at your website/blog, make sure it’s truly helpful and would remain relevant in years to come. This is the only way to get word of mouth referrals and skyrocket your website’s reach, quickly. Create exceptional contents that can be used over and over again. Don’t allow the trends to demean the efficacy of your solution or advice. Sure, you can’t control the market, but you can position your business to meet the latest market demands.

Web marketing takeaway

Do you lack these 3 key elements on your website? If yes, then “now” is the best moment to revitalize your website and improve your business. It doesn’t take so much to turn into a success story – Just meet people’s need in a lively manner. See you at the top!

This free guest post was written by:
Brian Nixon is a search engine optimizer who writes for www.pitstopmedia.com, a Vancouver SEO company that provides top rated services to businesses across North America. Brian has more than 10 years experience in professional SEO, as well as strong knowledge conversion rate optimization experience and Google Analytics.

Paid search traffic works by having webmasters bid on keywords that they feel are relevant to their page, and will generate incomes for them. Every time a user types in a search for that particular keyword, an instantaneous auction is held to see which webpage is willing to pay the most for the limited number of slots available.

From there, the paid links are displayed next to the organic search results, and funds change hands between the search engine provider and the webmaster whenever the searching user clicks on one of the paid links. This means that the webmaster is bidding on the value that the user’s visit to their page will generate.

From a valuation standpoint, paid search traffic is the easiest to understand. Since the traffic comes in as individually purchased visits, the cost of the traffic is equivalent to the value of the keyword itself. From there, a page can track the visitors and determine their profitability. If enough visitors convert into paying customers, the website will be profitable in its ability to arbitrage the difference between the costs of bringing users, and the revenues associated with the users that convert. This creates the conversion ratio for the page.

The trick to evaluating the value of a paid search traffic strategy is to look for a favorable conversion ratio, regardless of the cost per click. From there, we can develop the analysis by looking for opportunities to improve this ratio. This is done by split-testing ad copy to ensure that the paid links are compelling, and by diversifying the breadth and specificity of the keywords being bid on.

A popular strategy to pursue from this direction is to use keyword tools to find low-cost keywords that are related to a more popular alternative. This can be done by looking for long-tail alternatives to the existing choice, or by using synonyms. From there, the specificity of the campaign can be improved by using negative keywords to eliminate the under performing aspects of the portfolio, to ensure that the funds of the campaign are applied most efficiently.

By examining an existing paid search campaign for opportunities to improve the breadth or specificity of the keywords being bid on, we are therefore able to come up with a decision about whether to value that aspect of the asset at a premium or discount.

However, because of its paid nature, a web master needs to understand how to properly discount a social media campaign in order to fully evaluate the true value that it creates for the asset itself. The key to valuing social media traffic is to then break down the traffic stream into its keyword and demographic components, and respect the way in which they all contribute to the incomes created by the visitors themselves.

Analyzing keywords within a social media context is usually best done by comparing the results to a staple traffic benchmark. While social media traffic has been around for long enough to have begun establishing a fairly consistent price, paid search engine traffic is still considered to be staple source of visitors for the internet. As such, using paid traffic from search engines as a benchmark allows us to understand the value of the keywords being targeted through a social media campaign.

Specifically, we can use the benchmark to determine if it is worth our while to pursue the campaign at all. If the social media traffic is not able to out-perform the paid search engine traffic, it is not worth pursuing, especially because of its generally expensive nature. Similar to the make-or-buy decisions that were made in the design and functionality aspects of a web asset, the social media decision can be made as a search-or-social decision.

On the other side of the social traffic equation is the question of how the demographic specificity of the venue factors into the value that it brings to the page itself. Since we cannot use a search benchmark to determine this factor on a break-even basis, we need to evaluate it independently. This can be accomplished by tracking the conversion rates of specific demographics, and using that information to decide the incremental value of each demographic.

From there, we can apply that conversion ratio to determine if there is value in scaling the campaign itself. Specifically, many web masters find that the true value of running a social media campaign comes from switching the campaign into a PPV campaign, once click through rates begin to exceed the benefit of a PPC campaign.

So how do we turn this into a quantitative model? We start by determining how much more traffic is generated on a user/keyword-dollar basis in comparison to search engine traffic. This represents the premium or discount to which we can value social media traffic. From there, we can look at the conversion rate of search engine traffic against each particular demographic.

Since each demographic will convert within specific keyword categories at a different rate, we are able to re-calculate the premium/discount metric to determine exactly which campaigns are pulling in the valuable traffic to the asset. From there, a discounting decision can be made on the basis of whether or not there is an opportunity to improve the efficiency or overall profitability of the asset by cutting or adding specific campaigns.

This free guest post was written by:
Daniel is freelance writer for many influential business websites which include Cap Credit ™ and the NY Times. To lean more about Skip or to contact him about freelance work visit his Google+ page.

The term ‘printed materials’ refers to a variety of promotional and every day-use business items – brochures, business cards, postcards, posters, letterheads and compliment slips, as well as advertising through magazines, newspapers and billboards. Whilst we often take for granted the authority these materials pose, they’re marketing power is actually quite remarkable, and here’s why:

Building The Brand

Branding should be a top priority for businesses, as it is the key ingredient to achieve familiarity and loyalty with consumers. This fact is clearly demonstrated by the many corporate brands that are well known for their logos/slogans. For example – the slogan “Because you’re worth it” makes you immediately think of L’Oreal, just as similar as “The best a man can get” with the Gillette brand.

Branding works just as powerfully with logo designs and this is where printed materials have the upper hand. You can saturate the market with brand designs through the various distributions of printed items causing potential consumers to subconsciously form a memory of your identity. Once they have that association between brand and services or products, there is automatically a sense of credibility that gives the consumer comfort and the willingness to proceed with a purchase.

Physical Presence

Printed materials are a physical item, not digital. This is a distinct advantage in a number of areas; the first being disposability. Online spam ads are easy to ignore, you click a button and they’re gone, plus the fact that you can’t take everything you read online as factual information. You just never know these days. A flyer or brochure for example is physically put in front of your potential consumers, and if the design has the power to entice them to have a look then you’ve already jumped the first hurdle. More often than not, some people may have a quick read and keep the document for later reference, should they need it.

Another major benefit here is the ease of reading. You have the document in your hands and you can clearly see the full effect of the text and design – you don’t need to scroll down to read the full text. Couple this with the fact that online users generally have a shorter attention span, a physical printed material is ultimately better.

Targeting A Market

Again, most businesses will be aware of how to contact their target markets, and this can be implemented into the distribution of printed promotional materials. There are several methods of doing this – whether it’s through using a development geo-targeting tool or by placing your flyer into an appropriate magazine/newsletter, but in each instance your marketing material lands directly into the hands of your target market, leaving them to make the decision whether to proceed with enquiries.

How far you extend your target marketing geographically will depend on your type of business and your budget for business printing services, and whilst response can be far slower with this marketing method, any response is always a good thing right? More often than not it has proved an invaluable tool and one every business should look to be executing.

A Less Intrusive Method

We are daily subject to digital advertising – adverts that interrupt our TV or radio programs or that disturb our time surfing the internet. We have no control over this type of advertising, which in most cases can cause some annoyance. Printed marketing allows consumers full control as to when they pick up the article to read it, and whether they decide to act on it. In a growing cautious society, this is a gentle technique that will not waver any judgment about your business and have the simple job of letting your consumers know you are out there.

Send The Message

The design of a brand and the way in which it is presented can cause an instant reaction and first impression, and this is the strongest point of any type of marketing as it captures an audience and entices them to continue reading or find out more about your business. This applies to items like business cards, postcards and brochures – if you were to be presented with a flimsy reproduction of a promotional piece of printed material, would you hold a credible impression of the business?

Probably not. A quality piece of promotional material has a lasting impression on anyone who sees it, and similarly can be the difference to whether a person decides to pick it up and read it or not.

Do quality substrates cost more? Perhaps. However, most business printing services have a vast choice of materials allowing the business to choose one that can both represent their image and be friendly on the bank balance. Plus the fact that most print companies can offer significant discounts for bulk orders or business packages, so the savings argue this point quite clearly.

Let’s not cloud the reality of this topic and forget the aid of digital marketing, as it is equally important, but just a gentle reminder that these traditional print marketing methods have not outlived themselves just yet! Business printing services can produce all the promotional items you need, then with the joint effort of online marketing you can guarantee to achieve the maximum level of exposure your business deserves. Then it’s time to sit back and enjoy the rewards as you steadily climb one step of the ladder to reach success.

This free guest post was written by:
Claire Austin has been working in the print industry for some time now, and enjoys bringing ideas to life from pixels to paper at www.circleleafletprinting.co.uk.

Part of the problem is the phrase “surfing” because it implies that the average internet user is simply bouncing from site to site clicking on the first random link they see. In practice people often have specific requirements for what they want to see, yes they do browse for information but that’s usually on a site or blog they already know and like and they are happy to read the top stories regardless. So if most users have “intent” to find a specific piece of information or to answer a question why are some worth more than others?

A good example to illustrate visitor value is Google, since the search engine is one of the main connectors between users with a question and the billions of sites who hope to answer it. So on a basic level we can see that when you type certain keywords into Google more or less advertising appears depending on the perceived value but I want to look at things in more detail. For example the keyword “hotels” is valuable but according to the Google keyword tool “hotels in New York” is worth much more (based on what advertisers are willing to pay).

There’s a simple reason for this and it’s because it’s much easier to sell to the guy who wants to stay in New York because you know exactly what information to show him to complete the sale. With a very broad term like “hotels” you have so show them everything since you have so little visitor intent info to go on and so the conversion rate (percentage of people who buy) will always be much lower.

But how does the highly competitive world of online hotel reservations relate to the average webmaster starting a blog? Well I have found that the principle of intent carries though all web sectors regardless of size and it’s also the main aspect that webmasters get wrong. Since I focus mainly on getting my traffic from Google there are a few words I can use to target only those people who are thinking about making a purchase when they search, these phrases are called “price modifiers”, e.g:

• Cheap #keyword#
• Discount #keyword#
• Luxury #keyword#
• Bargain #keyword#
• #keyword# under xx price

If someone appends any of the following to the main “subject” of your niche it means their main intent is to buy. You will also find that when people are very specific about what they want (and there’s a price associated with that item/service) they are more likely to convert into a sale/order. E.g. someone doesn’t type “LCD computer screen under $150” just for research purposes.

You see it doesn’t really matter if your traffic is coming from Google/Social media/direct if your site isn’t focused around something which is at least someway associated with a “buying intent” you will struggle to make money, that doesn’t mean “buying intent” can’t be introduced but it’s much harder to do. For example even though Google doesn’t publish stats its widely believed that YouTube has yet to make a profit which makes sense to me, despite their massive traffic the average user is a 14 year old who wants to watch a music video for free, there’s not a credit card in sight.

I realise that many webmasters like to focus on keyword research (if they are targeting Google) but even with the price modifiers above none of this is going to matter if you get the subject wrong for your site. There seems to be a trend recently in the blogging world to focus on general blogging sites, i.e. blogging about blogging. Whilst I wouldn’t tell anyone what to write about it’s going to be very hard to target or work out visitor intent with such a general topic as “I love blogging”.

On the other hand what if you built a site around the subject of “wordpress plugins” which enhance the blogging experience and you could review the best ones and also specific sectors like SEO plugins. The most important aspect though is that there are many quality plugins which you have to buy if you want to use them and it’s here that you can turn your hobby site into one that makes money through commissions for referred sales. I suppose for most webmasters the difference between these two examples is small but in monetary terms the gap is huge.

The main point that I’m trying to get across here is that if you can get the foundations right in terms of subject for your site then making money from it down the road when it gets popular will be much easier. It’s easy to spot the popular blogs who haven’t worked out visitor intent before they start as they are the ones full of un-related ads for everything from floor cleaner to hair products, since they don’t understand their audience they have to offer them everything! I hope this article has provided a little insight into the whole concept of visitor intent.

This free guest post was written by:
This is a guest post by Pablo from earningmoneyonline.co.uk who is a blogger with a passion for internet marketing, web design and beer.

This means that all traffic fundamentally stems from keywords, with the volume of traffic depending on the relevance of the page itself. With that in mind, we need to understand exactly how it is that the value of a particular keyword is established. From there, we can begin looking at the fundamental worth of different traffic sources, and make the decision as to whether or not they are worthwhile.

Keywords are valued by search engines based on the web’s apparent demand for that topic as a paid link. Search engines (Google in particular) will auction off ad space on their search results for particular keywords. This allows them to determine the most efficient price point for a keyword based on webmaster demand. If a keyword’s price is bid up, it stands to reason that it is particularly valuable in its ability to generate revenues.

This is why we see that keywords associated with high-profitability assets (such as dating websites) are worth more than those of lower-profitability (such as with free online video games). From here, we can take a step further up the value chain and look at exactly where it is that this profitability is stemming from.

Websites generate cash flows by selling products and services, just like any store that exists in the real world. Similarly again to the real world, their ability to sell these products depends on the sheer desirability of the product, and the ease with which the consumer can access it. Keyword value represents the value of the accessibility of the product, whereas the sheer design of a page represents the desirability itself.

Once we build up enough of an understanding of how it is that keywords represent the accessibility-value of the page, we can then even come up with a quick valuation model that relies solely on this metric. Essentially, this means that control of the keyword represents control of the fundamental traffic resource. As such, many pages are designed to simply control keywords, and redirect traffic to the highest bidder through an affiliate program.

By controlling a keyword, an asset controls the value-creating potential of that traffic stream. The end goal is to therefore establish a competitive advantage in the page’s ability to control the traffic stream. This can be done through one of several ways. Firstly, the user can outbid their opponents to control the paid traffic stream. Secondly, they can outrank their competitors through relevance.

Lastly, they can seek out indirectly related keywords that drive similar traffic streams (essentially out-witting their competition. While these strategies will be discussed in further detail in a later segment, it is important to note how it is that this last strategy takes advantage of the way in which Short-Tail keywords (ie. highly specific keywords) can outweigh Long-Tail keywords (ie. keywords that are phrased as a question). While both are valuable, a webmaster needs to understand how the two interact so that they can diversify their keyword portfolio in a way that protects their access to traffic streams.

However, as with many aspects of a web-page, the subjective nature of design means that it can be difficult to evaluate just what kind of benefit the aesthetics of a page are creating for the bottom line. As such, the best way to evaluate design is through the opportunity cost of its creation, the end-user benefit that is created through the enhanced interface, and the traffic benefit that is generated from the sheer appeal of the aesthetics.

Opportunity Cost

The opportunity cost of designing an engaging website can be evaluated similarly to the way in which we did when we examined functionality. The trick is to then be able to understand the costs and benefits of using less-expensive talent against high-quality workers. Upon determining the price point at which we would need to meet in order to procure a similar design, we can evaluate the worth of the interface based on the ensuing make-or-buy decision.

The costs of hiring in talent to complete a basic design project can be estimated as follows:

The first thing to notice about this table is its similarities to the costs of building in functionality to a web asset. While these numbers are surprisingly convenient for planning purpose, it is important to remember that there is more room for error in these prices because of the way in which there is no artistic best practice in place that will assure you of getting a consistent output from a contractor. Some designers will have different creative visions for a project than others, and many will produce a different kind of outcome based on their own capabilities and tools.

Because of this flexibility, we need to be sure that we are able to effectively break down the cost of the job in accordance the amount of time which it will take to procure. If we are dealing with a basement artist, the project might require more time than it would take a professional Graphics Designer because the Basement Artist might not be as productive without an office. That being said, a simple logo or cartoon can be done in any environment with ease, meaning that the price variance will not be much.

As always, the trick when evaluating a make-or-buy decision is to understand the value which the design of the page if it were purchased outright as a full asset, or if it were to be built independently by hand. From there, we can begin to make the more sophisticated evaluation of how the design itself is contributing to the page’s worth from the end-user’s perspective.

End User Benefit

From a valuation perspective, the end user benefit of an innovative design is extremely important in the way that it establishes the brand of the page itself. By implementing a memorable design, the asset is securing its place in the user’s mind. While this might seem to be an intangible benefit, it is important to recognize the traffic implications of a strong brand.

Through an engaging design, an asset is able to forego both organic search and paid traffic, because the user base begins directly visiting the page through the address bar. This means that the site’s purchased traffic portfolio becomes more representative of new users visiting the site. From there, the quality of the page’s design can be evaluated as a function of the direct visits to the page, against the organic or paid traffic.

As a function, the ratio of indirect traffic (ie. search or paid) that is converted to direct traffic from the address bar represents the ability of the page’s design create a strong brand. By having a brand that establishes itself in the user’s mind in such a way that they are wanted to revisit the page directly, we are creating tangible value through the saved costs of traffic procurement.

While this might not be worst much during the starting stages of the page, it becomes invaluable later on as the page beings to scale, and rely on high-volume traffic venues. Whereas a page without a brand may rely on paid traffic to bring in visitors initially, and then provide those visitors with a venue to return to the page, a page with brand is able to procure cost effective traffic that saves a great deal of money on the bottom line.

The easiest way to calculate the ratio of indirect traffic that is converted to a direct user base is to use a dedicated tracking program on the page. From there, we can look at the referring source of the page, and compare it against the visitor’s IP address. If the IP is unique we can assume that it is a unique visitor. From there, we want to compare that visitor’s referring history, and search for a trend.

Specifically, if the latest visit is through a direct link, we can assume that they have been converted, and attribute the cost of traffic for that user to the design benefit. Alternatively, if that individual continues to return through an expensive paid link, and yet does not create any incremental revenue for the page itself, we can assume that the design of the page is not enough to establish a brand, to the point at which it is actually costing the asset additional funds.

From there, we need to determine if there is an opportunity to build up the design of the page in a way that will improve the ratio of direct:indirect traffic, and therefore unlock hidden value in the asset, or if the page itself inherently requires expensive traffic to sustain itself.

However, because of the way in which these tools are not always conducive to generating organic traffic as well as a content-focused page or as supportive of social traffic as media-driven strategies, we need to understand how it is that a web-page that focuses on creating practical functionality can be valued as a tangible asset.
Functionality

Opportunity Cost

The fundamental way to understand the value that is created by the practical functionality of a web-page is to asses it on the basis of its opportunity costs. Even though this side of the transaction ignores the worth that the functionality will create for an end user (don’t worry, we’ll get into that later), it allows us to look at the sheer costs of the property, and therefore assess how it is that it will scale later on. Specifically, by understanding the front-end costs of building hard-coded functionality into a page (from both a fixed and variable perspective), as well as the costs of acquiring that sort of functionality second hand, we can begin to build a cost-benefit model for understanding the risks and rewards of building practical website functionality.

While the cost of building on-page functionality is somewhat hard to determine, we can usually come up with a strong indication of its worth in accordance to the amount of time that it would take for a skilled professional to recreate a similar experience from scratch. This should then also take into consideration the additional costs associated with taking on particularly complex tasks.

For example, if the desired functionality is simply a php/javascript calculator, then we would be paying a contracted designer much less than if we were building a program for extracting and mapping GIS information using C#. In general, we can then break down developer skill levels into four main cost categories, each of which representing the skills required to build the desired functionality.

While these numbers represent just a broad estimate of how it is that contractors charge for their services, it is important to keep in mind that these amounts are extremely flexible. For example, perhaps a particularly skilled ‘Basic’ Designer is able to re-create the same level of functionality that an Application Developer would have normally developed for ten times the cost.

While it will obviously take them longer than 6 hours of working time, it would still save a great deal of cost on the bottom line. This means that an informed understanding of the capabilities of programming fields allows us to make a very strong ‘make-or-buy’ decision. If we can re-build functionality at a lower cost, why would we ever buy it at the developer-level cost.

On a final note, there is quite a bit to be said for the skills of the Basement Hacker skill-level. While these individuals don’t really have the understanding to build anything from scratch, their ability to apply snippets on their own terms means that we can use them to integrate the functionalities created by multiple skill levels, so that we don’t need to trust the full implementation of the project to a single party. Ideally, we should have a Basement Hacker’s understanding of our project, so that we can understand the nuance of the development process, and the costs associated with it.

End User Functionality

In conjunction with the cost-based valuation of a website, we also need to consider what kind of value a given functionality on a website will create for the page itself. The trick to this side of the equation is to remember that we do it in order to stop ourselves from wasting money. No matter how expensive, geeky, or useful a given application is, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will create the returns we want it too. If you’re ever in doubt, just look at all of the undersold apps out there, and remind yourself that you have no intentions in getting lost in such a barren desert of financial loss. The way to avoid such a disaster is to use comparative analysis and consumer-based cost-benefit analysis.

Comparative analysis of asset functionality involves looking at the apparent value that is being created by a similar asset, and then making a discounted estimation of what kind of value could therefore be created by the functionality that we are making in comparison. While effective in determining the long-term potential for such an asset, and to determine whether or not the functionality is being truly appreciated by the market, it is dangerous in the way in which it does not take into account the fact that each web-page is unique, and will therefore have a different level of uptake for its pages. In order to adjust for these discrepancies we need to carefully discount the worth of our own functionality against the comparative benchmark.

For example, if we are comparing our own social media game against Farmville, we need to remember that Zynga has a massive user base, strong social media integration, and a strong brand presence. Unless we can justify that our asset has a similar presence in the market as Zynga, it is not really reasonable for use to use Farmville as a benchmark.

However, if we were too find a small basket of small-scale farming games that all tend to have a similar level of uptake, we could assume that they represent the market for farming games, and use them as a benchmark for the kind of value that users place on the product itself. If users are generally paying $5 for a farm-game app, and there are approximately 200 users on each game, we can assume that an app is capable of creating $1,000 of value on its own, before taking micro-transactions into account.

The second aspect of consumer-facing functionality that needs to be taken into consideration is the cost-benefit analysis that is being done by the users themselves. In doing this analysis, we need to remember that consumers will always try to make informed decisions about which programs they use. They will do a small amount of research to determine which page suits their needs most, and make their decision based on the asset’s ability to fully meet their requirements. In the event that the competitors should all offer near substitutes, then they will instead be evaluating the costs of the different alternatives, rather than the benefits. From a comparative standpoint, this means that we need to be able to differentiate our own asset as being the most favorable.

Returning to the farm-game example, we can do a cost-benefit analysis of our own game against both Farmville (the incumbent), and the basket of other farm games as alternatives. Firstly, we can look at what it is about the smaller games that makes them an ideal alternative for those few users that choose to use them instead of Farmville, and evaluate if it is a cost or a benefit-based differentiator.

For example, if the items in the marketplace cost less in the alternative game, it is a cost factor that is likely driving the traffic to the smaller game. Alternatively, if the smaller game translates into several different languages that Farmville doesn’t have access to, then perhaps it is a benefit advantage that is sending users their way. In the event that the cost factor is the driving decision maker, we need to evaluate our own asset to determine if we are able to provide our game’s functionality at a similar or cheaper price point in order to remain competitive. If so, then we are likely offering a comparable product, and able to assume that our own product will create similar value for the user-base.

The same can be said if we find that our game offers the same kind of benefits as the multi-lingual game. From there, we can take measures to determine exactly what kind of value is created by the incremental pricing differences, and the incremental functionality differences, so that we can properly discount our assumed value, and make the ever-present make-or-buy decision from a valuation perspective.

The first way to keep track of off-line interactions occurring with your website is through using a click-to-call mechanism. While this feature never really took off as it was initially predicted to do, it is still an extremely effective mechanism for medium or larger websites to use when trying to engage customers into a more sophisticated transaction. From here, we can use software to record the conversations had with users, and transcribe it into a document that can be indexed.

Upon completing the transcription, we are in a position to benefit in a number of ways. Firstly, we can scan the conversations for recurring themes, and make adjustments accordingly to create intangible value. More importantly, we can use these conversations as content for increasing the relevance of our page. Particularly relevant conversations can be posted as anonymous examples of how to engage the company, and what the experience entails.

That being said, it’s pretty difficult for us to value an entire phone-tracking mechanism against a tiny piece of content that is created once and a while. As such, click-to-call tracking needs to be about valuing the ability of a sales representative to convert a call into a sale, and how much tangible worth that creates for the company on a per-call basis. This can then be measured against the cost of posting a phone-book or publication ad that would drive similar kinds of telephone traffic. On a cost-per-call basis, the comparative value can then be a function just how effective the mediums are.

The second mechanism to integrate into a valuation platform for web assets is one to track text-messages associated with the page. As SMS functionality moves out of its infancy, we can find more solutions for indexing and manipulating incoming text messages as they come from our user base. While this sort of functionality is obviously reserved for higher-scale websites, it is important to remember that such a size is still a goal for growling platforms. From there, we need to determine the cost of the SMS platform, and determine the tangible value it creates for the page itself.

Are these premium messages being sent through a phone network?

Then we need to understand the break-even cost of running such a system (to be discussed in a later section), and what kind of premium the vanity number and short-code are worth. As assets, we can then value the lease of this capacity on a fixed basis, with a fast-moving amortization, and an understanding of the third-party solutions that could provide a more cost effectively solution for a smaller scale operation. From an investment standpoint, we can then look at this section to determine if there is an opportunity to unlock economies of scale in an already successful web-asset with SMS integration by changing the way in which the messages are processed (ie. on a fixed or variable basis).

As mentioned before, the personal nature of off-page ‘content’ is hard to place a value on, simply because of the way that it requires person-to-person communication. That being said, the thing to remember is that online interactions should always be the goal of a website, and therefore looked at as highly valuable. By encouraging offline transactions, a relationship with the page is taken into the user’s real-world life, and ideally, into their real-world wallet.